Wood fillers are used in the construction and furniture industries to repair soft or hard wood or wood products, and also by contractors and do-it-yourself consumers to repair or cure imperfections in furniture or woodwork, often where the wood has been cracked or otherwise been damaged.
It is desirable that wood be able to maintain its natural beauty, such as when wood is stained to show the grain, it must not be readily apparent that a filler has been applied to the wood. It is therefore important that the filler be able to be smoothed even with the wood surface, and be able to match the color of the wood both before and after any staining.
There are several beneficial characteristics to be achieved in a wood filler product.
The wood filler should be easily spreadable, and should spread without the filler breaking up as it is spread.
A wood filler also most advantageously has a sufficiently long working time to allow the wood filler to be worked into a desired form or surface before setting. It is also desirable to produce a wood filler that also has a relatively short setting time, so that the wood filler sets to a point where it can be sanded or otherwise finished in a relatively short period of time.
In this regard, it is also beneficial to produce a wood filler that may be sanded without clogging the sand paper or other abrading media (that may reduce its efficacy). It is also beneficial to produce a wood filler that does not shrink or crack upon drying. Another beneficial characteristic in a wood filler is to have a relatively low post-drying density which bears a relation to the ability of the filler resist cracking or shrinking upon drying.
It is also desirable that the wood filler have uniform staining characteristics, to resist over-staining or under-staining.
It is therefore an object of the invention to create a wood filler having all of the above desirable characteristics; including being easy to use, having effective working and setting times, while being able to be easily and conveniently sanded, and capable of being easily and properly stained to match the appearance of the surrounding wood.
Although described with respect to a wood filler, it will be appreciated that similar advantages of easy application and surface matching may be obtained in other applications of the present invention. Such advantages may become apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art in light of the present disclosure or through practice of the invention.